The Beat: Grappling with a tough ruling

Tuesday

May 29, 2007 at 12:01 AMMay 29, 2007 at 3:10 PM

Albert Breer/Daily News staff

But that doesn't mean they think the governing body's decision is fair.

The crux of the matter is this: In the past, all sports have been subject to the 50-50 rule, which mandates that a prep coach can only lead a club team that draws less than half its roster from that coach's high school. The rule interpretation that just came down changed that for sports like wrestling, track, gymnastics and swimming.

Now, coaches in those sports won't be able to coach any candidate for their high school teams in the offseason.

"To me, they haven't justified the rationale that if an AAU basketball coach has less than 50 percent of his team from Natick, even if he coaches at Natick High, then he can coach the AAU team too," said Natick wrestling coach Bob Anniballi. "They're allowed that, baseball coaches are allowed to coach Legion if four out of nine starters aren't from that high school. That's OK, but if wrestling or swimming coaches bring 40 kids or 100 kids to a clinic, and a couple are from town, it's not OK?

"I can understand how coaches would be upset about that. To me, they haven't justified what makes the difference."

MIAA deputy director Bill Gaine says that his organization went to the MIAC recently with a plan to allow a four- or eight-week "open season" windows for voluntary summer workouts, but was quickly shot down.

The difference, according to some, is that in sports like wrestling and track, an individual's performance directly relates to the team's success. But Anniballi - who runs the Cobra Club in Natick - doesn't buy that.

"You can do the same thing by taking a quarterback and receiver aside, and having them fine-tuning and running routes, or by working with a pitcher and a catcher," he said. "How wouldn't that impact the team directly? I'm not outraged, but it doesn't seem to make sense."

Anniballi's day-to-day work won't be affected, since the Cobra Club doesn't enter competitions as a team and is made up of kids from about 10 different communities.

Franklin wrestling coach Carmine Colace, too, has already worked around such things in running the Wadsworth Wrestling Club, which has 120 members from 30 schools and always is well within the 50-50 guidelines. Colace simply doesn't coach the team in competition, and stays away from his own kids in helping out at the club.

"We host a competition, the New England Spring Duals, and I have additional club coaches, so they'll coach the team during the event," said Colace, who added that he stays away from Bay State Games competitions. "We're not allowed to coach, so we don't."

But Colace does feel the microscope bearing down on sports like his, just in day-to-day life at the high school.

"You do feel like that," he said. "If a kid goes and shoots hoop with his teammates in the spring or fall, they can do that. Kids are allowed to toss lacrosse balls in the gym. But when a kid goes to roll out a mat, they're asked not to do it."

Hudson wrestling coach Aaron Polansky is also the state's director for USA Wrestling, but because of these things, he stays out of the coaching side on the club level. In fact, he says the Massachusetts team that goes to nationals annually, by rule, doesn't have any MIAA coaches on staff to avoid the pitfalls that could arise.

With his own kids at Hudson, Polansky simply hands out a list of off-season options and lets them decide what they want to do with them. And if he has a problem with MIAA rules, he tries to come up with solutions, even in these types of between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place situations.

"I think it's the responsibility of the coaching demographic to find solutions," said Polansky. "If there's displeasure with a rule, we shouldn't hem and haw. We should present solutions. Unfortunately, very rarely does the coaching demographic bring solutions to the board."

***

The feeling Brad Sidwell had as he walked into his office at Franklin High last Tuesday, the day that the town's $2.7 million override was to be voted on, was awfully familiar.

"I gotta tell you, it was kinda like having a football game on a Friday night," the Panther athletic director said. "We had to wait all day to hear the results. Plus, my office is right where the polls were, so I was seeing people going in and out all day, and wondering how they were going to vote. It seemed like a big crowd, and I saw people I knew from all different parts of town.

"It was worrisome, but very exciting."

To use an old football term: The hay was in the barn. Sidwell had done his best to advocate passing the override, which was going to have an enormous, sweeping impact on his department.

Hours later, all that work paid off, as 58 percent of vote went in approval of the override, meaning Franklin High averted a massive jump in athletic fees. There still will be a rise, from $100 per kid per sport to the $125-150 range. But it's far less than the projected numbers, close to $500 per sport, had the override been voted down.

The athletic department wasn't the only one facing changes if that had happened, but "we were the one that had most to lose," said Sidwell. "Self-funding just creates big issues for varsity interscholastic athletics. It's definitely a big thing, and I'm sure it will come up again, I don't know when. But I don't even know how to tell how huge a relief this was."

Sidwell said he fielded 15 calls on his cell phone from 8:45-9 p.m. on Tuesday, just after the polls closed. And for good reason.

Had the vote failed, the athletic department would've lost $311,000 in school funding, and faced a projected 10 percent drop in participation, plus the loss of several sub-varsity programs.

***

What started as a Cub Scout activity may just have Hudson's Braden Gellenthien landing at the Summer Olympics in Beijing in a year's time.

Gellenthien will compete for a spot on the U.S. archery team when the trials kick off in Georgia in September. And despite the striking success he's had in the sport, there'll be a major adjustment taking place.

The 2004 Hudson High grad has always shot with a compound bow, which is what is generally used for hunting. The Olympic competition, meanwhile, mandates use of a recurve bow, which Gellenthien describes as "what you'd see in Robin Hood."

But if you listen to his words, Gellenthien could be told to shoot a toothpick out a slingshot, and he'd do it if it meant being an Olympian.

"It's a childhood dream for a lot of kids to be an Olympian," he said. "With it being a pretty high probability for me, you kind of take a step back and realize all the work you put into it."

Part of that work came in March, when Gellenthien traveled to Turkey and won the World Indoor Archery championship. To date, it ranks as his biggest win, over the two NCAA titles he won for the James Madison varsity, a program the school dropped after the 2006-07 season.

"It felt amazing," he said. "There's 64 guys there, who've made the cut, and only one standing at the end. It was surreal, like a dream."

The next one, of course, is waiting. And while the new bow has Gellenthien conceding that he'll stand a better chance at making the 2012 Games, his attitude going into the 2008 trials will be the same as it's always been.

"Every tournament I go to, I never think about anything but winning," he said. "Unless you don't feel like you can compete, or you haven't prepared, I don't see the point in looking at it any other way."

***

Last week, the news that Wellesley's Nate Freiman will play for the Orleans Cardinals of the Cape League ran in this space. And if things fall right, he may not be the only area representative on the prestigious circuit this summer.

Hopkinton's Mark Ostrander, who will be a senior at Maine in the fall, will report to the Chatham A's today for a couple of weeks as a temporary player. Those types are typically used to fill in as others finish up their college seasons in the NCAA Tournament.

But some play their way into full-time roles, and that's just what Ostrander's hoping to do. In fact, the chance at playing there alone is more than enough for a kid whose parents own a house in Eastham and grew up going to games in Orleans.

"Growing up watching the league, I've dreamed of it, but I really didn't know if it was attainable," he said. "Things really had to work out, and I'm lucky they did."

Ostrander just got done with a frustrating season with the Black Bears, which had him battling injury early, then fighting through a midseason slump. He finished with a .232 average, a home run and 14 RBI in 33 games.

***

Much as we'd like to take the credit, the Daily News Classic baseball tournament really was the brainchild of Lincoln-Sudbury coach Kirk Fredericks.

Three years in, Fredericks, still very involved in planning, is happy with the progress of the two-day event. But he continues to look for ways to augment it, and that may mean moving it from Milford's Fino Field in 2008.

"I'm a little disappointed in Milford in the fact that we can't play (the championship game) under the lights," he said. "I think we've improved, we have the concession stand, we have the PA booth. But I think to take the next step, we should have a night game, so you can have a bigger crowd."

Fredericks said that beyond just that, he'd rather play the championship game at the very end of the tournament, instead of having the schedule set to have the host team play the early game. The last two years, that had the title tilt staged before the consolation, which is not the ideal and would have made a night game for the big trophy impossible.

He added that "it might be time we go in another direction" as far as the site, but remains happy with the field that's been assembled.

"I think it's great to go into the tournament, and have four very good teams," Fredericks said. "You can't ask for anything more than that."

***

A year after scrambling to make a late hire of a girls soccer coach, Milford athletic director Nick Zacchilli has been forced to do it again.

Lindsay Rogers, pregnant with her second child, stepped aside weeks ago. And Zacchilli has found a replacement quickly in tabbing 26-year-old Martin Reggette - a Marlborough assistant the last two years - to man the post.

Reggette grew up in England and played over there semi-professionally for Hinckley United before attending Wolverhampton University. He was a goaltender, and coached the position with both the boys and girls teams at Marlborough.

The only drawback Zacchilli saw was that Reggette is not a teacher, like Rogers was before giving that up to take maternity leave. He does, however, manage a business, so he'll have time flexibility.

"He's in a field where he can makes his own hours and be there for the girls whenever they need him," said Zacchilli. "Unfortunately, it's not the teacher/coach situation you'd like, but being young and enthusiastic, I think he's gonna be a great addition for the program."

Zacchilli added that Rogers "did a great job" in leading a young team to the cusp of a postseason berth.

***

The drive continues to establish an athletic hall of fame at Framingham High, with AD Gary Doherty putting plans in place to hold a meeting mid-June to put together a ballot with nominees for the first class.

Doherty already got parties interested in joining the committee, most prominently Post 74 Legion manager Bunky Smith, but says that the process of forming the group is still ongoing. And as such, once the plans for the meeting are in place, he's planning to throw open the doors to others wanting to be involved in the selection process.

"I'm ready to do this," said Doherty this week. "Once we get the committee together and set, it's gonna be real simple."

Congratulations to Framingham's Colin Hulme, once again. For the second straight year, the Colgate grad was tabbed an honorable-mention selection on the USILA All-American team. He'll likely be taken early on in the MLL Draft on Thursday. ...

Polansky and USA Wrestling will be staging a BELT series competition at Greater Lawrence High from June 8-10. There will be kids, high school and open divisions, and competitors can register at usa.masswrestling.com. ...

A tip of the cap to Oscar Alvarez, the Framingham senior who won Flyer of the Year honors after starring on the gridiron and basketball court in his time at the school. ...

Finally, kudos to Hopedale's Sierra Schrader and Franklin's Alicia Kutil, members of the AAU Lady Predators U11 team that won a gold medal at the state championship earlier in the month. They'll head off to nationals in New Orleans this summer.

(Albert Breer is a Daily News staff writer. He can be reached at abreer@cnc.com or 508-626-3872.)